Bottom line: For Cubs, moving preferable to losing

Current team personnel want to preserve Wrigley but understand need for additional revenue

May 01, 2013|By Paul Sullivan, Chicago Tribune reporter

It was 28 years ago that the Illinois Supreme Court shut the Cubs out from playing night games at Wrigley Field, upholding a state law and city ordinance that banned the use of lights at the ballpark.

"We're obviously disappointed in the outcome, and it now forces us to explore other alternatives," then-Cubs president and general manager Dallas Green said. "You have to look to other stadiums, other concepts. … It's just another nail in the coffin."

The Cubs eventually got their lights three years later, and the veiled threat to move never materialized.

On Wednesday, Chairman Tom Ricketts took a page out of Tribune Co.'s Cubs playbook, threatening to move the team out of Wrigley Field if the rooftop owners block the club's renovation plan with a lawsuit.

Can President Theo Epstein envision the Cubs leaving Wrigley Field?

"It's hard for everyone to envision," he said. "Everyone is on record as saying their goal to stay here and win here. I think Tom's answer to that really underscores the importance of the project, and the importance of the revenue to our vision of building a sustainable winner in a big market and behaving the way a big market should.

"Tom loves Wrigley Field. He doesn't wake up in the morning thinking about moving. He wakes up thinking about winning here. But winning does come first. … As he indicated, you have to keep alternatives alive just because this has been such a crazy process."

After that court decision in October 1985, Green brought up the nightmarish scenario of the Cubs being forced to play World Series home games in St. Louis in 1986 because Wrigley had no lights. The Cubs finished 70-90 in '86, and they haven't played in a World Series since 1945. Ricketts doesn't have the same bluster as Green, and few believe he actually would follow through on his threat.

But first baseman Anthony Rizzo, a cornerstone of the Cubs' rebuilding, can picture Ricketts moving the team.

"He's building a winning environment here and he's going to do whatever it takes," Rizzo said. "If it takes moving, I know he wants to bring a championship here, whether it's at Wrigley or not.

"We all want to be at Wrigley. It's so storied here and it's great playing here. I think the renovation needs to get done, to be honest, for everyone."

Cubs manager Dale Sveum pointed Wednesday to the need for added revenue to sign free agents and draft picks. But isn't the Cubs' $106 million payroll high enough to win?

"Yeah," he said. "But when you have extra revenue for this and that goes into the major league team, as well as player development, you can use a ballpark figure of $200 million, and then just say you've created another $20 million somewhere along the line, whether it's (from) signs or whatever, and you're like, 'Oh, we can get one more guy.' "

The Cubs began the night 10-16, and it's seems apparent they need more than "one guy."